AD plants are already heavily subsidised
IAN Liddell-Grainger claimed that increased business rates will hit anaerobic digester plants hard and even put some of them out of business. Really?
Ofgem figures show that an average sized AD plant in his constituency receives about £600 every hour in subsidy. Many businesses would love to be underwritten by such generous amounts of the public’s money.
High subsidies have encouraged more AD plants at a time when the amount of food waste is starting to decline. To keep the gravy train on track, the AD industry has turned to crops.
What Mr Liddell-Grainger fails to report is that, like the AD industry as a whole, his local AD processes roughly equal tonnages of food waste and energy crops such as maize. The massive subsidies generated by these crops make incentives for environmental benefit irrelevant and take thousands of acres out of food production. What has happened to Mr LiddellGrainger’s support for locally produced food?
Well-sited industrial waste digesters make a real contribution to reducing our CO2 output but their impact should not be ignored. Mr Liddell-Grainger’s derogatory remarks directed at “nimbies” (otherwise known as constituents) are misplaced. His local AD plant was, and continues to be, malodorous. Only the involvement of the Environment Agency has made it tolerable.
Meanwhile, its reliance on crops generates thousands of tractor movements on rural roads every year. Government policy states that agricultural land should be used for food production and the Committee for Climate Change advises that growing annual crops for energy does not make a useful contribution to climate change mitigation. These views are reflected in policies that restrict the tonnage of crops going to new AD plants. Does Mr Liddell-Grainger agree with his own Government’s policy?
At a time when many sectors are receiving budget cuts, it seems reasonable to suggest that a highly profitable, dubiously beneficial and heavily subsidised industry returns something to the public purse.
Vernon Hughes Spaxton, Somerset